BAAG activities in Jan-May 2017

 

Following our national roundtable on illicit economies in Afghanistan last December, we published a report of the event. The report, Understanding the Impact of Illicit Economies on Afghanistan's Development, contains an overview of discussions held by the APPG Afghanistan and the subsequent roundtable discussion, held in collaboration with Christian Aid and Global Witness. Contributions from experts David Mansfield, Stephen Carter, and Heaven Crowley highlighted the role illicit drug, extractives, and migration economies have on development in the country.

In February, we held our first national roundtable for the year entitled, ‘Aid in a conflict zone: can military and development objectives work together?’, in collaboration with the Afghanistan Studies Group (ASG) of King’s College London.  The panellists had a lively discussion about the lessons learned from past efforts to combine civil and military operations in Afghanistan and their views about what this ‘blurring of lines’ might mean for Afghanistan’s future.  A full report of the event will be published soon.

In April, BAAG met with EC and DEVCO policymakers in Brussels to provide input into the new EU Strategy for Afghanistan. Led by the European Network for NGOs in Afghanistan (ENNA), civil society raised points about the importance of taking on board local perspectives, peacebuilding at all levels, the importance of including and supporting Afghan CSOs, poverty reduction, family planning, the decreased funding for literacy programs, the issue of migration and the inadequate reintegration of returnees as well as anti-corruption, especially regarding extractive industries, on the one hand, and ordinary citizens as victims of corruption, on the other. The points were well received and we look forward to seeing how the meeting impacted the final version of the EU strategy.

In May, we along with our members met the new Afghan Ambassador to the UK, H.E. S. Tayeb Jawad, during which we discussed priority issues for the country including the importance of putting out positive stories about Afghanistan through our own respective communication outlets and the media. The Ambassador expressed interest in collaborating on such initiatives in the future as in his view, the most damaging messages are those which say ‘in Afghanistan, it doesn’t work’.

Planning for our Afghanistan journalist’s trip continues! It is shaping up to be an exciting trip an updated itinerary has been uploaded to the shared drive.

In the absence of a good picture of our activities so far, please accept this shot from talented Afghan photographer Najeeb Azad!

PIN activities January - April 2017

Bulletin – African dinosaurs

In April, PIN published a first issue of its regular bulletin. The issue’s main story focuses on the “African dinosaurs” – the longest ruling African leaders. The readers could find out who is ruling for decades and what are the social and economical impacts of one man's rule. Furthermore, we covered issues such as the Chinese development aid in Africa, which raises a lot of concerns; land grabbing in Papua New-Guinea or health care system in Kurdistan. In our survey, Czech ambassador to Nigeria Pavel Mikeš disproves a common belief that the current Czech-African diplomatic relationships are weak. 

Bulletins are sent to relevant decision makers, i.e. members of Czech national Parliament and Czech representatives in European Parliament, Ministries' officials and key development experts, scholars and NGO representatives.

Jama – documentary

While visiting Kenya last year, Jan Pazderka from Czech Tv shot a documentary about the state of education in Kenya which was aired in April 17, 2017. During his stay he met Jama, a Kenyan student, who could not have pursue his studies without the financial support from Andrea Volfová, Czech humanitarian and development worker. The documentary explores the reality of many gifted Kenyan students, who do not have enough financial resources for their studies.

PIN has started the collaboration with new media house DVTv in Ukraine

In March, the young reporter Filip Horký visited PIN’s mission in Ukraine where he had a chance to see the everyday life under ongoing conflict. The war in Eastern Ukraine affects public services, power, water and food supplies and thus many people depend on humanitarian aid delivery.  DVTv broadcast five stories from the front line:

• Life on the Ukrainian frontline, 10 months without water and electricity 
• We have lost everything, the interview with Olga 
• The oligarchs want the war tocontinue 
• Shooting, destroyed houses, localpeople searching for unexploded grenades 
• Czech people against NGOs? Theinterview with PIN’s managers in Ukraine  

Czech TV in Indonesia: Environmental protection

In March, Barbora Šámalová from Czech Tv travelled to Indonesia, where she visited Czech scientists and Czech NGOs’ workers, who are trying to rescue endangered animals from extinction. Big companies are gaining land to cultivate the oil palms that are used to manufacture cheap oil. Despite the demonstrations and global outrage the production of palm oil is steadily rising in the world and the rain forests in Indonesia continue to be burnt.  

• Czechs are saving rare monkeys
• Czech businesses in Bali
• Governer election in Jakarta
• Rescueing endangered species in Indonesia

Czech TV in DRC and Rwanda: Women’s rights and development aid

In April, Czech Tv reporter Jakub Nettl visited Rwanda and DR Congo. The reportages from Rwanda focused on the issues of women equality and country economic and social development. In DR Congo, the reportage about PIN's development projects and current political situation were broadcast in main news. 

Mondo activities January–March 2017

Planning and Implementation: Uganda Study Trip
In December 2016 the M4D steering group gave very positive feedback on the study trips conducted by VIKES. Additionally, it was discussed that the surplus budget from previous years could be used to conduct extra study trips. Mondo proposed to conduct a study trip to Uganda (as we had the experience from August 2016 of arranging a study trip for two young Estonian journalists and one competition winner) and the steering group agreed. In January, partners sent Mondo information about the journalists that would take part of the study trip from their countries. Three partners from NMSs (House of Europe from Lithuania, Green Liberty from Latvia and PMVRO from Slovakia) decided to participate in this action and as PIN from Czech Republic was unable to participate, it gave the opportunity for Green Liberty to choose two journalists to participate.

To prepare for the study trip, Mondo cooperated closely with VIKES to learn from their previous experiences in all practical matters, from budget to motivating the journalists to dig deeper in their preparation process. It was highly helpful that project partners had used Google Drive for previous study trips, as it gave easy access to valuable insights in the preparation process. Additionally the information stored in SurveyMonkey feedback surveys sent out to previous participants was of great help. In Kampala and also during preparation work, Esther Nakazzi – a Ugandan journalist and fixer – was of great help.

To help partners find the most suitable participants and prepare more efficiently, Mondo sent a selection of possible topics that could be covered in Uganda and a preparation timetable to partners. All preparation with partners and participants was done via e-mails, Skype meetings and again through Google Drive.

The participants from each country were the following:

• Dannar Leitmaa, Estonia. Journalist at Eesti Ekspress and Raadio 2. 
• Sandra Kropa, Latvia. Latvian Public Broadcasting Radio and TV journalist
• Goda Jurevičiūtė, Lithuania. Journalist at daily newspaper Lietuvos žinios.
• Anna Ūdre, Latvia. Freelance journalist, working with Delfi.lv.
• Pavol Štrba, Slovakia. Journalist at daily SME.

The study trip took place in the beginning of March (5.03–15.03). During the study trip, the group had the chance to visit the following organisations and places:

• Refugee Law Project, a Ugandan NGO working with refugee rights.
• Femrite, a publishing house and group of Ugandan writers (mostly female).
• AFIEGO (Africa Institute for Energy Governance​), an NGO working with energy issues and human rights.
• YARID (Young African Refugees for Integral Development​), an NGO working mostly with urban Congolese refugees and their rights.
• Hope North, a secondary school founded during the civil war by former child soldier Sam Okello to support communities escaping violence in the north. 
• Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement: field office of the OPM (Office of the Prime Minister), UNHCR field office, Health Centre Panyadoli III (coordinated by the Real Medicine Foundation).
• BRAC Uganda and it's activities in Bweyale. BRAC is an international NGO working closely with communities (through community health workers and other similar approaches) to empower the poor and alleviate poverty.
• Uganda Wildlife Autority's (UWA) field office in Murchison Falls National Park. Topics discussed ranged from poaching to working with the community and the effects of climate change.
• UNHCR Kampala Office.
• Outbox, a co-working space for Ugandan start-ups.
• Kampala Disabled Initiatives (KDI) sewing workshop.

The group also visited "Wakaliwood" – a low budget action film production in Wakaliga, Kampala. The contact with Wakaliwood was introduced by one of the participants, who also stayed two days longer in Uganda. That participant also had the possibility to visit:

• Chess class in Kampala School for the Physically Handicapped, headed by Robert Katende (coach of Phiona Mutesi, known from the Disney biopic "Queen of Katwe").
• SMUG, a local NGO working for the human rights of LGBTQ community members.

After the study trip, a survey was conducted among participants. The results were:

• Out of 4 of the participants gave maximum points (labelled as "Great success") to the study trip overall, 1 participant chose "Rather exceeded my expectations" as their rating. 
• All five noted that they would be highly likely to recommend the trip to a colleague.
• Most of the feedback from the participants was positive, a very tight schedule was noted as one of the downsides.

Other Journalist Study TripsFrom January to March, the following study trips also took place:

• A journalist and operator from the nature show "Osoon" visited Ghana.
• The grant receiver from December 2016 and a photographer visited Southeast Asia to portray issues connected to palm oil.

Discussions with the journalists after their study trips reflected that they learned many new things and were overall satisfied with the opportunity that M4D project had made possible.

Planning and Implementation: SDG Awareness Campaign
To raise awareness on the SDGs and generally on sustainable development, Mondo cooperated with several organisations in Estonia to create a joint campaign. The campaign was coordinated by Tallinn Music Week (TMW). Besides Mondo and TMW, the following organisations took part of the campaign:

• The Ministry of Environment
• Embassy of Sweden
• European Commission Representation in Estonia
• Environmental Investment Centre of Estonia
• The media company Eesti Meedia
• Nordea Bank
• The telecommunications company Telia

The campaign centred on Estonian singers and musicians who spoke about their ways of contributing to the SDGs. The campaign consisted of street posters, newspaper ads, radio ads, online activities (videos, banners, web portal hoolin.ee), a video competition for youth, and the displaying of an SDG-themed photo exhibition made of the photos taken by journalist participants of M4D project. Campaign ads were also reproduced in Russian. Sustainable development was also featured in materials produced for Tallinn Music Week (such as timetables, catalogues, etc) and in the media coverage of the festival.

• There were 50 posters in Tallinn during 27.03-02.04.2017. The visuals were seen at least once by 255,033 people. The newspaper ads had an estimated reach of 176,400 readers.
• Online banners were displayed 1,578,664 times and received 1228 clicks.
• 23 people took part of the video competition.
• The videos received 74,190 views in Facebook and Youtube.

Distribution of posters:

Additional activities
For activities coming up during the year, we had several planning meetings:

• Planning meetings about the upcoming conference on the topic of development and security.
• Planning meetings with ERR about future activities in 2017.
• Planning meeting for a thematic newspaper edition of Müürileht.

In January, Mondo produced SDG-themed sticky notes as a part of raising awareness about SDGs in Estonia.

Also, a youth event on the topic of SDGs and the UN was held in February. Youth from all over Estonia gathered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss and listen to panelists on the topics of SDGs and the UN Security Council. 70 youths from 11 schools participated, 6 foreign diplomats residing in Estonia and 4 officials from the MFA and State Chancellery also took part.

 

Campaign "Choose if You Believe in Myths" launched

A ten week Facebook campaign Choose if You Believe in Myths was launched today.

Every Monday, the campaign will bring one of ten most widespread myths on development and development cooperation and invite the Facebook users to share their opinion on them by joining an anonymous survey.    

The posts published the following days will try to fight the myths by bringing facts, data and arguments in form of infographics, short stories from the field, newspaper articles and videos.